Mr. Clarinet

"But they fuckin' set him free, Joe!" Max said, raising his voice to a near shout.

"Do you know how much a one-way ticket to Haiti costs?" Joe said. "A hundred bucks, give or take—plus tax. Do you know how much it costs the state to keep a man on death row? Hell—forget that. Do you know how much it costs the state to execute a man? Thousands. See the logic?"

"The victims' families 'see the logic'?" Max said bitterly.

Joe didn't say anything. Max could tell he was angry about it too, but there was something else eating away at him.

"You wanna tell me the rest, Joe."

"They cleaned out Boukman's cell the day he left. Found this," Joe said, handing Max a sheet of school exercise-book paper sealed in an evidence bag.

Boukman had cut out a newspaper picture of Max at his trial and stuck it in the middle of the paper. Underneath it, in pencil, in that strange, childlike writing of his—capitals, all letters bereft of curves, strokes linked by dots and drawn so straight he appeared to have used a ruler—he'd written: YOU GIVE ME REASON TO LIVE. Below that, he'd drawn a small outline of Haiti.

"Fuck's he mean by that?" Joe asked.

"He said that to me at his trial, when I was givin' evidence," Max said and left it at that. He wasn't going to spring the truth on Joe. Not now. Not ever, if he could help it.

He'd come face-to-face with Boukman twice, before his arrest. He'd never been so terrified of another human being in all his life.

"I don't know about you, but there was somethin' really scary about Boukman," Joe said. "D'you remember when we busted in there—that zombie-palace place?"

"He's just a man, Joe. A sick, twisted man, but a man all the same. Flesh and blood like us."

"He didn't so much as groan when you laid into him."

"So? Did he fly off on a broomstick?"

"I don't care how much Carver's payin' you, man. I don't think you should go. Give it a pass," Joe said.

"If I see Boukman in Haiti, I'll tell him you say hello. And then I'll kill him," Max said.

"You can't afford to take this shit lightly," Joe said, angry.

"I'm not."

"I got your piece," Joe lowered his voice and leaned over. "New Beretta, two hundred shells. Hollow point and regular. Gimme your flight details. It'll be waitin' for you in Departures. Pick it up before you get on the plane. One thing: don't bring it back. It stays in Haiti."

"You could get into serious shit for this—arming a convicted felon," Max joked, hiking up the sleeves of his sweatshirt to just below his elbows.

"I don't know no felons, but I do know good men who take wrong turns." Joe smiled. They clicked glasses.

"Thanks man. Thanks for everything you did for me when I was away. I owe you."

"You don't owe me shit. You're a cop. We look after our own. You know how it is and always will be."

Depending on what they'd done to get there (most rapes and all kiddie-sex crimes were out, but everything else was tolerated, cops who went to jail were protected by the system. There was an unofficial national network, in which one state police department looked out for a felon from another state police department, knowing that the favor would be returned in spades sometime down the line. Con-cops would sometimes be kept in a maximum-security prison for a week or two and then quietly transferred out to a minimum-security white-collar jail. That was what happened to those who'd killed suspects, or got caught taking backhanders or stealing dope and selling it back on the street. If they couldn't swing a transfer, a fallen cop would be segregated, kept in solitary, have his meals brought to him by the guards, and allowed to shower and exercise alone. If solitary was all booked up, as it frequently was, the cops would be put in General Population, but with two guards watching their backs at all times. If a con did make a move on a jailbird cop, he'd get thrown in the hole long enough for the guards to put the word out that he was a snitch, and let out just in time to get shanked. Although Max was arrested in New York, Joe had had no trouble making sure his friend got five-star security treatment at Attica.

"Before you leave you should go see Clyde Beeson," Joe said.

"Beeson?" Max said. Out of all the Florida PIs, Clyde Beeson had been his major competition. Max had always despised him, ever since the Boukman case.

"Carver employed him before you. Didn't work out too good, way I heard it."

"What happened?"

"Best you hear it from him."

"He won't talk to me."

"He will if you tell him you're going to Haiti."

"I'll see him if I got the time."

"Make time," Joe said.

It was close to midnight and the bar crowd below was peaking. They were drunker, looser, their walks to and from the bathroom unsteady, their voices raised to shouting pitch above the din of the music threading through a hundred different conversations. He could hear the muffled din through the glass.

Max checked on how the executives were doing with the women. He saw the blonde and one of the men at a table near the back. Their jackets were off. The man had rolled up his sleeves and taken off his tie. The woman had on a sleeveless black halterneck. From her well-toned and proportioned arms, Max saw she worked out regularly. The man was making his move now, leaning closer to her across the table, touching her hand. He was making her laugh too. It probably wasn't even that funny, but she was interested in him. Her friend was gone, so was the man's competition—probably separately; losers rarely left together.

Max and Joe talked some more: who'd retired, who'd died (three—cancer, bullets, drunk and drowned), who was married, divorced, what the job was like now, how things had changed post–Rodney King. They laughed, bitched, reminisced. Joe told him about the fifteen Bruce Springsteen concerts he'd seen while Max had been away. Mercifully, he kept the details to a minimum. They drank more Diet Cokes, scoped out the lounge couples, talked about getting older. It was good, it was warm, time passed quickly, and Max forgot about Boukman for the whole while.

By two o'clock, the bar had emptied of all but a few drinkers. The couple Max had been watching had left.

Joe and Max made their way out.

It was cool and slightly breezy on the street. Max took in a deep breath of Miami air—sea, mixed with swamp and mild traffic fumes.

"How does it feel? Bein' out?" Joe asked.

"Like learning to walk and finding out you can still run," Max said. "Tell me something? How come you never came to see me?"

"Did you expect me to?"

"No."

"Seein' you in there would've messed with my moral compass. Cops don't go to jail," Joe said. "Besides, I felt kinda responsible. Not teachin' you some restraint back in the day, when I could've."